Lovesong
by thermopylae
Summary: shortfics written for livejournal community challenges. Chapter 6 up: eleven 50-word prompted drabbles.
1. we can only wait so long

Disclaimer: _One Piece_ is property of Eiichiro Oda. As usual, I make no money off of this piece. Original prompt for this fic belongs to the Livejournal community "31-days."

**notes:** Hey, I haven't jumped ship (or rather, I've jumped back on ship.) This piece was originally written for the LJ community "31-days." If I write more _One Piece_ fics for that community, I will cross-post them here. And yes, I will so finish those other on-going fics.

**day/theme:** Nov. 3 / "my pillow won't tell me where he's gone"

**"We Can Only Wait So Long"**

Kaya missed him the most when she was in bed. Thankfully, she no longer spent many waking hours in bed.

It was not so long ago (really not even a month ago) that the bed had been Kaya's world: the place where she ate, drank, slept, thought, talked, read, grieved. It'd been lonely and boring, but for some reason, her always-frail body had failed her completely and consigned her to an eiderdown cage. On the days when he came, though, it wasn't so bad. He told her stories that made her laugh, and laughing stirred some memory of running in her feet, so that they longed to touch the ground again; it dislodged the tiny demons of despondancy from her breast and scattered them, making them circle warily before daring to roost again. Yes, on the days when she saw Usopp, there was always the hope of getting better.

Well, now she was better; now he was gone. Now Kaya could walk through town again, reaquainting herself with the active world, but she never found memories of Usopp among the shops and neighbors' parlors. Kaya liked that. It saved her from moping. It was only when she returned to bed in the evenings and emerged from it in the mornings that she recalled snatches of stories and her own laughing protests, and the anxiety of waiting for him to appear; it was strange how a place of illness could hold the best memories of a friend.

Kaya didn't cry into her pillow. She wouldn't stoop to it. Start staining the sheets with salt tears, she reasoned, and you were one step away from clasping roses dramatically to your bosom. Besides, he was somewhere out on the open sea, almost certainly having exciting adventures, and when he came back and asked what she'd done with _her_ time, Kaya didn't want to have to say, "Nothing."

Instead, she threw herself into her studies. It helped that she liked the profession and her mentoring doctor. It cheered her to meet people her own age. None of them were helping her through an illness or saving her life: they were just normal friends. To them, too, Kaya was just a normal friend, a sensible counterweight to heavier, more precious relationships.

Kaya usually ate lunch with one of the village shopgirls. She liked being part of a giggling, gossiping crowd, and it was nice to know she wasn't the only girl waiting for a far-away someone.

"Two lousy letters in six months," Lacey complained one day. "And here _I_ am, writing to him every week! How's that fair?"

"Not very," Kaya admitted. She reflected for a minute before venturing, "Perhaps his unit is out at sea?"

Lacey poked at her meal. "I've thought of that," she said. "But you can still send post back with the newspaper gulls, you know." (Kaya didn't know, and finding out made her feel strangely indignant.) "It's even easier if you're in the Marines," Lacey continued. "They have such a good system. So two letters in six months is simply ridiculous!" She thumped the table for emphasis.

"Usopp hasn't even sent one letter," Kaya said, to make Lacey feel better.

"How terrible." Lacey shook her head in sympathy. "After you gave him that ship and everything."

"Yes." Kaya hesitated. "It's not that he owes me anything," she said slowly, "But it is _strange_ not knowing where he is, and hearing _nothing_ from him. He used to be the only person I saw, practically, besides Klahadore and Merry." Now it was her turn to pick at her food.

Lacey patted her shoulder. "You must cry into your pillow every night," she remarked. "It's what I do most nights, anyway."

Kaya smiled but shook her head. "Isn't it uncomfortable to sleep on a wet pillow?" she teased.

"You bet," Lacey said lightly. Her eyes, though, were sad and brooding and not half as silly as she sounded. "But where else can a girl have a good cry?"

Kaya could see the point. Walking back to the clinic after lunch, she tried to sort out her feelings. Being a sensible girl, she had all sorts of sensible excuses. She couldn't send letters to Usopp because she didn't know where he was. It was probably very difficult for a pirate to get letters through the post. Who was Kaya to risk Usopp and his crew being caught by the Marines? Maybe they were so far from an island that newspaper gulls couldn't reach them. Maybe one couldn't send post from the Grand Line. Goodness knew the newspaper never reported much about that mysterious place.

Still - it would be nice to know that he was _somewhere_, Kaya thought. She didn't let him go (against her own personal wishes, too!) just so he could drop off the face of the world.

Kaya sighed as she purchased the day's paper from a nearby vendor. She had not realized before that her memory was mixed with expectation; or that, if she was honest with herself, she sometimes went to bed really _annoyed_. Kaya didn't want to be like Lacey and cry herself to sleep every night, but she was beginning to understand why someone might.

Walking as she read, Kaya casually scanned the headlines. The ocean-going restaurant, _Baratie_, had fended off a pirate crew but lost its sous-chef to another: the Straw-Hat Pirates. Kaya frowned. She thought she should recognize the name, but couldn't place it. Arlong Park on Cocoyashi Island had been destroyed and the merman crime gang disbanded. Kaya recalled those names only vaguely from school lessons.

A more familiar name caught her eye. 'Straw-Hat' Luffy. Luffy! Why, of course. Kaya remembered the funny hat Luffy wore; he must be the captain of the "Straw-Hat Pirates," then. So he had a _Baratie_ chef now? Kaya read on. "'Straw-Hat' Luffy's crew includes former bounty hunter Roronoa Zoro; a native Cocoyashi citizen as navigator; one of _Baratie's_ famous 'fighting cooks', and a sniper."

Why, so Usopp had been at this Arlong Park -Kaya checked the date- just last week! And at the _Baratie_ before that. Resolutely, Kaya folded the paper and put it in her bag to read later. The articles' details sounded positively gory, and she didn't want anything distracting her from her studies. But already those far-off places and battles took on new meaning as Kaya imagined Usopp (she supposed he was the 'sniper' of the crew) right in the middle of them.

The new bounty posters were pasted on a board outside the clinic. Kaya looked at them with new interest. Sure enough, there was one of Luffy, his toothy smile taking up fully half of the picture. Beyond the smile, though, somewhere in the distance, was a small figure with his back turned. There were the familiar unruly curls, and the too-big overalls, and the thin arms held jauntily akimbo.

Kaya began to laugh. The laughing continued as she walked up the steps to the doctor's clinic. Now, more than ever, she was glad she'd kept her pillow dry.

--finis--

(Review? Please? I might stop talking in questions if you do?)


	2. lovesong

**Title:** Lovesong  
**Day/Theme:** Aug. 28, 2006. "In sorrow to be here again, I am loving you"

**notes:** The fic is a **spoiler** for the Water 7 arc. Last line of dialogue is from the last three panels of chapter 327, my translation. Edits, including a title change, have been made from the original version (nothing major.)

**Lovesong**

It is the last time he will be alone with her. The last time for silence and the occasional fond word, here between the death sentence and the chaos. It is the only time he will have to do his grieving as a boy, before the return of his companions forces him into maturity.

He¡¦s never had much to offer her. No tangerine grove, no lawn chair. No favorite perch on the figurehead. He hasn¡¦t ever filled the galley with warm cooking smells. No workshop for him, no hugging of the mast. Only his own body, settling down for a nap in more or less the same spot every day, and a few contented sighs. He likes to think he has worn a part of her smooth, has made an impression on her with his constant nestling. But he knows they haven¡¦t been together long enough for that.

Which is worse? he wonders. He has known the raw grief of a friend taken away; Death stealing her life away like a thief in an unsuspecting house. But then again, there is also something awful about giving friends away to the dark, offering them up with his own hands. And having to say, "She will not get better. It must be done." If we are to go on, one of us must be left behind.

If she had been stronger...If they had stopped more often for repairs...

At times like these, the mind wanders through what might have been.

"Merry," he says softly, his voice giving both forgiveness and apology. "Can you really not run anymore...?"

He already knows the answer. She is tired. If he loves her, and if he respects the love she has borne for all of them (in the shape of the death-wound he cannot see), he will let her rest. Now there is only the letting go, and the hardening of the heart. When the others return from the shipyard, with their confused grief and poor, helpless struggles, he will have to be the anchor.

She will not get better. It must be done.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, to a dear friend soon to be dead.

- - - - -  
**notes:** This was written way back in August, when I could still secretly hope that Paulie would resurrect Merry with his mad rope skillz. It was a good hope, and I'll still love Merry best if I want to!


	3. the quietest wish

**Day/Theme:** 03/04, "however you live, there's a part of you always standing by, mapping out the sky"  
**notes:** Spoilers through Arlong Park. Slightly edited from the original version.

**The Quietest Wish**

Who knew? that when I picked you up from the rubble - because you were crying, because you sounded exactly as lonely and scared as I felt - who knew I was saving the life of a genius?

That's what you are: a genius. You think it's nothing special, that everyone who likes maps and the wind and water can do what you do, but we know better. Bellemere and me and Gen and Arlong, oh, especially Arlong. A thousand men with a thousand books and ten thousand miles of experience can't hold a candle to you.

Someday soon you're going to find out. You're quick and clever like that. I already see you staring at your maps, the ones of places we've never heard of, tracing your finger around their shores. You're wondering what they're like, how their houses look, how the people there dress. Soon you'll ask Arlong to let you take a trip - for research, or supplies, or anything. And he'll let you go, because he knows you'll come back. I can just see you walking down other streets on other islands, tasting new foods, buying strange trinkets from people who have not known you your whole life. You're the curious one in the family, so you'll ask questions of everyone you meet; before the trip is out it'll dawn on you that you are the smartest person in these waters. There is no one like you, no one you can't beat. You'll discover that you are beautiful. People will turn their heads to follow your bright hair, the flash of your eyes, the way your smile can light up the sky - as we already do. You'll use that to your advantage. You're too smart not to.

When you come back, this place will seem like a prison more than ever before. And you'll want, more than ever, to leave.

Fly away, my darling. See the world and make it your own. Ordinary me, I'm not worth the ransom. You're the one with talent; you deserve all the attention that comes your way. I could be anybody.

There was only one time I did something brave. This tattoo makes my body strange to me. It's something you would do. But it's pretty, I think, all hearts and swirls, not like the awful one you have. It makes me stand out a little, don't you think? When you leave us for those far-off lands, I'll pretend I'm not the Nojiko that harvests tangerines and dusts the shelves. I'll be Nojiko the exotic island queen, every tattoo a record of my heroic deeds. Maybe, when you're far away, the sight of yours in a mirror will remind you - not of Arlong - but of me, tending the tangerine trees.

That'll be nice, won't it? I'll be you and you'll be me.

You'll be my adventure.

(I can be your home.)

- - - - -


	4. seven flowers

**Day/theme:** March 11th, "once the words are spoken, something may be broken"  
**Warnings:** AU, deathfic. If you squint real hard, there are some spoilers for Enies Lobby.  
**notes:** I wrote this for the community, but because of travel-related drama didn't manage to post in time. But I liked it too much not to post _somewhere_.

**seven flowers**

Surrounded - and his voice becoming ever fainter - there was nowhere to go but across the ocean and one by one up the ghostly chain of arms, warm as flesh beneath their broken feet, taking advantage of a hole blown in the wall - some use at last out of those confounded warships - coughing choking dust in the eyes before the body remembered to close them shut (even as the brain screamed for every organ to be used; anything to find him among the rubble and hunks of mortar ever raining down on their heads as they ran down the corridors and then some stairs - now up broken steps stumbling when newly-garnered wounds betrayed their presence, only to be caught and pushed along by hands for the moment not quite as weary as they; in this dance of push-and-pull-and-fall they dodged stone, shied away from gunfire, clambered over pillars, threw themselves across chasms without gauging the distance (what was the point? - the only importance lay in reaching him in time before his voice became unthinkably silenced) to finally stumble across the very top last step and not so much burst as fall on the door, bearing it down by the sheer collective weight of their tired trembling aching yearning mad-with-worry bodies.

The room was full of the familiar stink; if they didn't find him soon he would leave them, he was leaving -

red red red red red, all over the room in pools and long streaks; they could almost judge the hours and minutes by the shaded palette of vermilion and dull brown, accompanied by the particular metallic odor that was strange yet vital companion to lifeblood - now forming a trail (they caught themselves automatically guessing the movements of battle, thinking of the location of his body in time and space while they were running leaping ducking jumping climbing racing to reach him) not to the center as it should and not narrowing to a trickle as it should, beneath his firmly planted feet, but to a rubbled-littered space next to a wall unremarkable from the rest of the room and so carelessly, horrifically wide that their boy, eyes shut tight against the destruction which he had wrought, seemed to be drowning sinking slipping down away from them

- or maybe already gone.

The world stopped beating.

He bent down next to the broken body. His large animal eyes were wet. "He's -"

"Don't say it." His voice was clipped and quiet. The hardness in the one visible eye flared for a moment, then vanished.

The same tension and release flashed around the circle. And old hardness from another lifetime, familiar but long unseen.

The tower was falling. The floor rocked like the ocean without. Large blocks of wall and ceiling landed precariously near.

They didn't dodge, or duck, or leap, or run. Their attention cared only for their poor beautiful boy.

A cannonball broke through. Stone and wood rained down. Dust and more stone flew back up.

It was a bright blue day.

Clouds hung fat and lazy, piled to dangerous heights.

A second cannonball rose ponderously upwards. Dominating the sky.

It caught their gaze. They tilted their chins to follow its movement:

flowers arching towards the sun.

- - - - -  
**notes:** As always, feedback and concrit deeply appreciated! Thanks in advance!


	5. fenceedge

**Notes:** Written for the livejournal community 30kisses, theme #6 "The space between dream and reality". All of the fics written for this comm. will be Sanji/Nami, but I kind of don't want to make a separate story for these since I don't yet know how far I'll get with this challenge and if I'll manage to complete it. Also, I'll do my best to keep the sap to a minimum :P

This chapter contains **spoilers** for the Thriller Bark arc.

"**Fence-edge"**

What makes a fantasy so pleasant?

Consider the golden-haired man-boy - Sanji, who teeters on the fence edge between gentle maturity and pure, testosterone-driven boyhood - running along the rubble, fueled by righteous outrage and hormones and the kind of giddiness particular to a night without sleep: he is caught up in a fantasy.

That his darling, darling Nami should be forced into a sham wedding against her will is cause for wrathful vengeance, to be sure, but he knows without ever admitting it to himself that the thought is also thrilling. He skids around a corner of the castle, just managing to avoid putting a hand on the damp, surely disease-infested stone, and kicks almost absently at a couple of the zombies that seem to spring up like weeds as he passes. One of them he grabs by the scruff of the neck to serve as a guide, hardly paying attention to the zombie's howls and groans as it is dragged over the rougher parts of the terrain. How does Nami look in her wedding dress, Sanji wonders...

Beautiful, of course. Rapturous. The gown will be white, as innocently white as a virgin; a pure, white silk gown to complement Nami's cream-and-pink skin and cling shyly to to the ripeness of her curves. She will be standing at the altar - face averted to avoid the slavering lech creeping ever nearer for that unholy kiss - he will burst through the double doors of the chapel (he can see them already; they are just as huge and the thick wood as rotted as he imagined) - she will turn towards the booming sound in a rustle of silk - the fiend will curse and swear - she will run to him, and throw her arms around his neck, and press her warm, soft body against his until he can feel the sweet swelling of her bosom against his breast as she breathes through slightly parted lips into his ear, "Thank you, thank you for coming."

Oh, God.

But there is the matter of the fiend, who is still advancing but with a snarl now distorting his grotesque features in place of a leer. Sanji will, with the tenderest of touches, place his hands on her back - no, her cheek - no, her hips - _no_, absolutely not, that's moving much too fast - her waist, yes, he will place his hands on her waist and gently disentangle her fingers from his hair, and step out of the folds of the silk gown which have wrapped themselves persuasively around his legs.

In a church there must be rows of pews; Sanji will lead Nami to one and bid her sit down, and then turn just as the lech bears down upon them. There will be a fight, a brief one which Sanji will win, although not before the fiend delivers a blow that will hit the pews and knock Nami to the ground, and this heinous act will not doubt spur Sanji into kicking the fiend into a final, definite insensibility. In any case, the fiend is quickly disposed of and just as quickly forgotten. And then Sanji will run to Nami's side. She will be unharmed but partly covered under the debris - her face will be turned downward into the crook of one elbow - she will be dazed, perhaps even unconscious. But the soft touch of Sanji's hand on her cheek will make her lashes flutter like thick, dark feathers, and as he gathers her into his arms she will smile faintly, ethereally. So dazzled will he be by her beauty, which in his mind's eye reaches almost angelic heights, that it will be some moments after he has already stood up that he will notice that all the discord has crumpled the smooth perfection of her gown: the skirt, disturbed by his arm at the small of her knees, has slid down the pink, round smoothness of her thighs to collect in a silken puddle in the valley of her - her -

With an effort, Sanji pulls himself together. The chapel doors are very close now. The fantasy simply skips a beat and continues on.

Nami is too pure! too innocent! He must not sully her lips after such an ordeal, even though her neck arches so invitingly and the flesh of her bosom quivers under his fingertips. He must preserve her honor. So, unheeding of their desolate surroundings and the fresh crop of zombies crowding at the door, he will bend down his head and - after a moment of agonizing hesitation - plant fervent, reverent kisses along her thighs to help cover their nakedness, and as he moves closer towards that silken puddle she will thrust her neck up and her head back and let out a single, low moan - "Aan" - to give voice to her pleasure.

Oh, _God_.

Hormones and lack of sleep have combined to make a heady brew that sends Sanji into feverish intoxication; he feels almost as if he is on fire as he reaches the chapel doors at last. They are already open, disappointingly, robbing him the pleasure of kicking them down himself, but no matter. He drops the zombie, who crawls away on hands and knees as soon as it hits the ground, and dashes into the room. "Nami, my love!" he cries. "I've come to rescue you!"

To his relief, she is standing in front of the altar and is even wearing a pure white wedding dress, just as he imagined. And the pews are gratifyingly empty. But what is that zombie doing, holding her by the arms? Why are her eyes closed and her head slumping to the side? Why does her body droop downwards when the zombie shifts away?

In fantasies one never feels fear.

There is a fight, and it is a short one. The emotion driving his actions, making him connect his foot to the beast-man's face again and again is no longer lust; it is anger. Lust belongs to the fantasy, discarded at the door. Anger belongs to reality, which is a stripping away not of fantasy but of expectation - despite his posturing Sanji is no fool and never confuses the two. The Nami who presses her body against his exists only in imagination, born out of his desire for the Nami who resides in reality - fierce; short-tempered; impatient; kind; unflaggingly awake to the world around her. That this beast-faced monster could replace her with this sleeping nymph - this angel - this goddess who in her perfect, still beauty makes for a false Nami with no place in either fantasy or reality is a crime Sanji cannot forgive.

The moment that fantasy dissipates like fog into irrelevance, one has to step off the fence-edge onto the ground of one side or the other.

He wins for a good while, even when the beast-faced monster is raining invisible blows upon his body, because Nami is safe in his arms and visible. Until the knife plunges into his back he wins, and the moment the knife sinks in instinct wrests control of his body to make his arms thrust outwards and his fingers unfurl so that Nami in her pure, white silk dress travels through the air and then falls. He cannot avoid hearing the soft thud of her body hitting the stone floor. He cannot avoid seeing her face turned downwards into the crook of one elbow. The only small consolation he can take is that he threw her as gently as possible, that her cream-and-pink skin will not be covered in bruises when she wakes - and he is sure she will wake up at any moment now, even as one moment bleeds without interruption into the next.

--end—

**notes:** Some scenes also based on the One Piece parody of Sayonara Zetusbou Sensei video on YouTube.


	6. 11 drabbles

A collection of 50-word prompted drabbles I wrote for the one_piece Livejournal community. First fic is self-prompted.

**Contains spoilers** through Chapter 600.

1. **Prompt:** Sanji/Nami

When you are eleven, stranded, and starving, too empty even to weep for a life wasted on potato scrapings and picture books, how could you know? - one day you will sup at love's table and drink your fill from its cup; such blessings you will be given, golden-haired boy.

xxxxxx

2. **Prompt:** Singing in the rain

There were intruders on the deck: a man and a woman. _Singing_.

"Who's there?" quavered Chopper.

A looming shape turned into Franky, wet with rain.

"That was _you_?"

"Yep," Franky hummed in baritone. "My voice is controllable – like my hair! Mecha!" He ended in soprano.

Overawed, Chopper fainted dead away.

xxxxxx

3. **Prompt:** Sanji/Nami, a party

"It's a party, Sanji. Relax."

He cooed, "A gentleman always –"

"Can't dance?"

"I'm sorry, Nami sweet?"

"Bet you can't."

Wordlessly, he dipped her backwards, his fingers delicious against her back. And this, she thought as he leaned in with a scent of salt of cigarettes, was more like it.

xxxxxx

4. **Prompt:** Island of spiders

Once she dreamed: an island frothing with spiders spinning, spinning. She in the middle, caught.

Waking, she remembers the woman who spun such magic on her loom that a goddess grew afraid and cursed her.

Robin thinks this is the separation between men and women, mortals and gods.

Gossamer, clinging.

xxxxxx

5. **Prompt:** Brook's new wardrobe

When he arrived, finally, he brought it all with him:

Shirts, belts, trousers, crocodile boots, cravats, furs, vests, rings, crushed velvet jackets, neckties, silk handkerchiefs, hats, patent leather everything.

There was barely space to move in the boys' room for all the clothes.

Sanji was furious. Brook _refused_ to share.

xxxxxx

6. **Prompt:** Hachi and Camie

Despite the aftermath, she remembers it as the perfect day.

Why not? Camie looks at her husband absentmindedly rubbing the scar on his chest, which time and surgery can't erase.

Selective memory is a shield against the sorrow knocking 'round their door. Inside, there's only happiness warm as takoyaki, homemade.

xxxxxx

7. **Prompt:** Luffy, disguises (i)

Nami remembers Luffy in the hammock, hard-eyed, frowning, a near twin for his dangerous brother.

Now she wonders, as Luffy laughs and passes around that ridiculous mustache for everyone to try on, what he has done with the other face.

And do reunions simply disguise the distance of two years?

xxxxxx

8. **Prompt:** Luffy, disguises (ii)

"A mustache'd look good with the scar."

"No."

"You could be an afro-mustache skeleton…"

"Yohohohoho! But no."

"Robin – "

"No, thank you."

"But, Nami, you've got a mustache above your lip already, so – "

"_What_?"

Nobody, Luffy thought sadly as the beating commenced, appreciated the value of a good disguise.

xxxxxx

9. **Prompt:** Luffy with a lightsaber

"This is all your fault!" Nami yelled. "_Why_ did you make that stupid thing, anyway?"

"Science demands –" Franky started.

"Science my ass!" Nami screamed. Then, to Luffy, "Stop _saying_ 'Whommm'! It _goes_ 'Whommm' _already_!"

"Whommm!" Luffy called back happily, taking the top off of his fiftieth tree.

Franky grinned.

xxxxxx

10. **Prompt:** Sanji missed his kitchen

"Do you have an aquarium?"

Ivanov laughed. "I have a fishbowl."

Sanji sighed smoke. "Oh." He paused. "Then could you steal some food behind my back?"

"Vat?"

"Nothing; never mind."

Sanji wandered back to the little kitchen and, just like every day before this, began setting the table for nine.

xxxxxx

11. **Prompt:** Usopp's new hair (and the sheer mass of it)

"Remember: into the scalp, twice daily," Usopp whispered.

"Will this work?" his secret visitor said tersely.

"Sure!" Usopp replied soothingly. "Look at me – and I'm not even balding! I mean –" he babbled, "It'll be okay. Really, Zoro."

Usopp patted his mane as Zoro retreated, grinning. Some people believed _anything_.

xxxxxx

**Notes:**

1. This was originally going to be part of a longer fic idea, but it sounded overwrought after I mapped it all out. In my head it's Sanji/Nami, but really it could be Sanji's relationship with the whole crew.

4. This is my favorite, I think, of the serious entries. Whereas I had to condense the first one to make it effective, this one would be good expanded into a 100-word drabble.

6. Hachi and Camie was the hardest one to write - though I enjoyed the challenge! Not only have I never written these characters before (or, full disclosure, thought much about them past Shabondy Arc), but I felt like there wasn't much to say about them. I work best with conflict and dysfunction, and Hachi and Camie are, happily for them but unfortunately for me, in the healthiest relationship in the series. Damn you, octopus! *shakes fist* Seriously, though, this was another one where I had a good core idea (selective memory is a survival skill for socially marginalized species) but which I couldn't convey fully in 50 words.

9. I love it when Nami flips out. _Love_ it.


End file.
